October 31, 2010

When last we saw them, the Patriots had all but fallen apart, escaping San Diego with a 3-point win against a barely competent opponent. And now, on All Hallow's Eve, Randy Moss was back to haunt his former home, as well as a still-questionable Patriots secondary.

So you could say things were a little spooky coming in to today's game, and they stayed that way for Patriots fans until the second half, which began tied at 7-7.

October 27, 2010

Yes, people still try to harp on Buckner, I guess just to see if it works. Even though anyone who's really taken the time to learn about what happened on Oct. 26, 1986 doesn't blame Buckner, or at least puts him further down the blame list than his manager and teammates in the bullpen. Even though it's all different now.

2004 irrevocably changed the equation for Red Sox fans. Now there is something to think back to and take comfort in, even in years like this one when things don't go the way we'd like. Now there is something to respond with when some behind-the-times heckler yells out "Buckner."

I will always be grateful to the 2004 Red Sox for that alone, but there's plenty more that they did to be grateful for.

So, to commemorate another anniversary of their victory, below is the World Series section of my multi-part essay on 2004. It's long and self-indulgent, but that's appropriate in a way; today is a day for basking in the memories among Red Sox fans.

And yes, we know all the rest of you miss heckling us about '1918' and 'The Curse' and poor old Billy Buck. Oh, well.

Part VII

The World Series

And when the band you're in starts playin' diff'rent tunes I'll see you on the Dark Side of the Moon... --Pink Floyd

October 25, 2010

It has now been well over 24 hours. I got a pretty good night's sleep on it, too. And I'm still feeling a painfully strong cognitive dissonance over what happened in the Patriots-Chargers game yesterday.

First of all, the Chargers were awful. It was not possible to play the sport of American football worse than they did yesterday, at pretty much any level.They are just lucky it is not a game in which they could have accidentally shot at their own goal. Because if it was that kind of football, they would have. They were that bad.

And I won't pretend I took no joy in that. I find the Chargers the trash-talkingest, whiniest, take-no-responsibility team in the league. Most of this probably stems from LaDanian Tomlinson's boo-hooing over the years in the direction of Bill Belichick, but even with Tomlinson gone, this team's personality still gets on my nerves. After utterly embarrassing themselves on the field throughout the game, some of the receivers who'd committed the most egregious errors were still popping up in the faces of Patriots defenders after plays, flapping their gums.

Pathetic.

My personal favorite example of how undisciplined and undeserving of respect the Chargers can be (and probably my favorite moment of the game, really) was when they began the second quarter with a 25-yard completed pass from Philip Rivers to rookie Rich Goodman, who forgot he wasn't playing in college, hadn't been touched down, and let go of the ball. The better to start his clapping and celebrating, of course.

That's when James Sanders fell on the ball. The ball was then ruled live. The Patriots offense took over at their own 41.

Having watched Brady & Co. slug it out with the Ravens the week before, having watched them make a 1-yard touchdown toss look like a casual trip to the laundromat following this game's previous Chargers fumble, and given that the offense has been the source of most of the Patriots' success so far this season, I was rubbing my hands together with glee, anticipating the start of a good, old-fashioned, confidence-boosting beatdown.

October 22, 2010

The title is in reference to an old, now-defunct group blog called "Chicks Talk Football" that's gathering dust on the Interwebs these days. It has been given over to broken links and red "x"s where pictures (including the banner) should be.

And yes, I basically spent all my midweek football-writing energy in my comments on that thread because, dammit, I'm a Facebook addict. The first step is admitting you have a problem...

Thanks to Amy, Chris, Jen and Mer, who gave me permission to republish their comments.

October 18, 2010

It was Homecoming at my alma mater this past weekend, and it was a poignant one at that. But Sunday in the NFL also featured homecomings: Deion Branch's first game back at Gillette as a Patriot; Randy Moss's first game back in Minnesota's Metrodome.

The two are linked by more than that, of course; while the contractual dealings that moved each wide receiver to a new (old) home in the last week were separate, from a Patriots' fan's perspective, it might as well have been a straight-up trade.

Branch is back to fill more than just the wide-receiver's role, you see. Even if Brandon Tate is being discussed as a potential deep-pass weapon (though he didn't seem to be used all that much in that capacity yesterday), it's clearly Branch that's stepped in to replace Moss in the role of Brady's sidekick.Yesterday he was seen sitting in the spot on the bench directly to Tom Brady's left, exactly where Moss used to be.

In his press conference following the harrowing, exhilarating overtime victory over the Ravens yesterday, Branch expressed gratitude to the Patriots organization for bringing him back (though the gratitude should've been theirs -- he took a stiff pay cut, about $4 million or so, to return). But when it came to Tom Brady, Branch made abundantly clear what his primary motivation was for returning to New England.

"Tom [Brady] makes everything so much easier," he said in response to the first question from reporters.

And then it continued:

Tuesday was kind of crazy. They pretty much had to hold Tom back because he was all antsy. 'I've got to get you the ball' and this and that. Coach was like, 'Look, son. I'm going to pretty much take you out of practice every now and then because Tom is trying to get you the ball 20 times.' This was the first day of practice. He was excited. I was excited, too. I just didn't want to get out there and get to moving around and start messing up the offense not knowing what to do...

And continued, to his concluding words:

...playing with this guy, he just makes you feel a little bit more than what you really are. I know this would never happen - I give him so much credit because he deserves it - but true enough I wish every receiver would get the opportunity to play with this guy because he's amazing. He's amazing.

In his first game back with the Patriots, Deion Branch led the receiving corps with 9 catches for 98 yards and a touchdown. He was lionized by Patriots fans from his first, relatively insignificant, routine 8-yard catch to the touchdown reception that put the Patriots within three points of tying the Ravens and overtime, to his crucial role in the later drive that would put the Patriots in range to score the tying field goal. Branch accounted for more than a third of the 90 yards the Patriots traversed from their own 14 to the Ravens' 6 in that instance, and racked up more than a third of his day's total with 37 yards receiving on that drive alone.

Afterwards, it looked like his smile would permanently split his face. There were times in that "yes, sir," "no, sir", press conference where it seemed like there were tears in his eyes.

Of course it's easy to say, now that Branch has made the money he sought with Seattle, that he wishes he'd never left the Patriots. And while he never put on a bombastic display of demands for 'respect' and attention, he made his rejection of the Patriots' 2006 contract offer unmistakably clear, with a holdout that drew at least some controversy.

But cut to a few hours later at the Metrodome, with Randy Moss back in purple, wearing his original No. 84 (which, perhaps coincidentally, had also been assigned to Branch by the Patriots). He had a respectable, if not spectacular day, and also led his team's receivers for the game with five receptions for 55 yards, though the game's single touchdown pass had gone elsewhere, and Moss didn't get a sniff of the ball in the first half.

And his face on that Minnesota sideline was a downright sulk. Sourness just radiated from him. He was as visibly dour as Branch had been exuberant.

The differences between Sunday's experiences for Branch and for Moss weren't as wide statistically or monetarily as they seemed emotionally. On that level, anyway, there was the sense of an allegory, an archetypal cycle, playing out. And it was a cautionary tale.

October 15, 2010

I've said before that I hate "here's why I haven't written" posts. When I have time to write, I usually don't want to waste it writing about why I wasn't writing before, because it's usually for frivolous reasons everybody is dealing with and nobody wants to hear about.

But in this case, the length of my disappearance while some major stuff was going down for my teams, as well as the fact that I lack for content to just pick back up with sans preamble -- games watched, articles read, analyses completed, other blogs followed -- warrant at least some kind of explanation.

These are annoying, too, but another disclaimer: much as it might be therapeutic for me to pour out, in vivid color, the entire pantheon of horrors that's engulfed the last two weeks, there are personal and medical privacy issues involved, and I have absolutely no appetite for the inevitable armchair criticisms the Internet tends to deliver to people in crisis. So if the lack of details makes this hard to follow, I can only shrug and apologize.

The above is more the face we're used to, so be assured the madness was temporary.

But there was another possible sign we are in the End Times: the Randy Moss trade.

Oh, yes. Do not think that the circumstances beyond my control which have kept me from even lazily photoblogging* this week (before now), mean that the Moss hoopla has escaped my notice. I believe that sound you may have heard off in the distance from other parts of the country earlier this week was a significant portion of the New England population hollering, "WTF?!?" in unison.

P.S. Speaking of the Belichick Face, Rob Bradford's Twitter icon seems to be going deservedly viral. I would enjoy having it on a poster, coffee mug, and / or T-shirt, myself.

October 04, 2010

I originally posted this on Dec. 12, 2009, when we thought Mike Lowell had been traded to the Rangers. Here it is again, for real this time, updated with more photos and excerpts from this year.

What surprised me when I went back over this year's posts which mentioned Lowell was how many of them also mentioned frustration -- with the abortive trade to Texas, with his position on the team in limbo, with umpires. His final season may have been among his most challenging. You can't say he was quiet or stoic about it, but I felt the statements he did make about it were fair, and his frustration understandable.

I will miss his classy, smooth style and his wry humor. I miss the days of his impressive defense at third base already. I won't miss watching him play, when he does play, in obvious pain, with a limp he can't quite hide.

I may crush a lot on pitchers, but somehow it's the third basemen that always break my heart.

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